Children of the Master

by Andrew Marr

  With that, the Master headed irritably for the shower. He didn’t like explaining himself, even to the inner circle of the inner circle. And his morning routine had been interrupted, and therefore ruined. But as ever, the pummelling force of the scalding water on his scalp reinvigorated him. He’d like, he thought, to see the extraordinary Mrs Phillips later on. She couldn’t resist him, of course. They were alike in that respect – irresistible to lesser creatures. It was almost like that problem of physics: what happened when two irresistible forces collided? Something for CERN …

  The Master’s eerie youthfulness had been explained by his friends in many different ways. Some thought it was the daily gym sessions, others an utter lack of pensiveness or self-questioning. But really, it was simply that his curiosity had never waned. Stay interested and you stay alive. How, he wondered, would Caroline explain her unfaithfulness with him to the remarkable Angela? Would she even admit it? An interesting question of psychology.

  A Flying Pot

  Don’t drink – it’s my only lifestyle advice. Just don’t drink. Not if you want to hold power.

  The Master

  Angela and Caro were having a fight. They were having it in mutters and hisses, because they were having it while they were clearing the small back garden of the Barker house for a bonfire, and there were neighbours a few yards away, also gardening. But the low volume didn’t make it any less savage.

  Caro, bent low over a bedraggled azalea, which she was murdering, was literally shaking with anger. ‘How could you? That was just cruel. When did you become so judgemental?’

  A year ago, Angela might have made some appreciative remark about Caro’s bottom, tightly encased in filthy jeans. But that was a lifetime ago. Now she lifted her head, tasting alcohol in her mouth, and snapped back: ‘Judgement’s the job, you grand bloody minister. Hadn’t you noticed?’

  Caro stood and turned to look at her with an expression of undisguised dislike. ‘Don’t take that tone with me.’

  Angela, clutching a large, cracked flowerpot, straightened, ignoring her. ‘And since, around here at least, the Lord has delegated His work to me, I rather think a bit of plain speaking is the least you should expect. Quint’s a revolting man. I’ve looked some of his stuff up, and it’s nothing more than toadying drivel. I just gave him a bit of plain speaking. What? Don’t look away from me. It’s what he needed. So he writes that’ – she pointed at a scrunched newspaper lying on top of the silage bin. ‘So what? It’s what he does. How you ever got mixed up with him I’ll never understand. You used to be better than that.’

  ‘You – you – pious little prig. That’s only a dog collar, you know. This is only Barker. You’re not Mother bloody Teresa. Yes, Peter Quint has helped me in the past. He was going to help me in the future. But now you’ve blown it for me. I’ve got an enemy for life in one of the most important papers in the country. Thanks, sweetheart.’

  Angela had never heard the word spoken like that. She flamed. ‘You know what I used to like about you? It seems funny now, but from the first day we met at school, I always thought you had a soul. Other people fell in love with your beautiful face, and your charming smile, and all those nonsense things that were just given to you – which, by the way, aren’t really you, and they’ll go away one day. They will.

  ‘Oh yes, they will. But I saw more. You were rooted. Your feet were firmly on the ground, and you understood that we’re put here to make this stinking world a slightly better place. Sometimes I believe in paradise, and sometimes I don’t. But I always thought we could make a little paradise on earth if we put our backs into it. And I thought you did too.’

  The argument was at a fork; it could fall back, or it could worsen. Caro hedged. ‘So why do you think – we should knock that fence down, by the way, the whole thing – why do you think I went into politics in the first place?’

  Angela no longer cared. ‘Because it’s all about you. That’s what’s changed. It’s always about you. You barely have a moment for the boys these days – and by the way, they’ve noticed. As for me, I’m just an embarrassment. Oh, yes. I told your precious soon-to-be-ex-leader Alwyn Grimaldi what I thought, that day at Chequers. I just said stuff I say all the time; and you squirmed, and tried to act as if you’d only bumped into me the day before. Next thing, it’ll be some man. Now you’re picking a fight with me – me – about Peter Quint, who’s less’ – Angela brought her gumboot down on a large snail that had been struggling its way across a paving stone, crunching it into shards and goo – ‘than that.’

  Angela was red-faced. A year ago, Caro might have found that attractive. Now she said, ‘You’re drunk. In the middle of the afternoon. Just after you’ve taken a service. You’re disgusting.’

  As Caro stomped down the side of the house towards her car, slamming the side gate behind her, Angela hurled the flowerpot after her. Missing by some distance, it shattered against the back wall of the house. She howled a word which scholars, working hard, have so far failed to discover in either Testament.

  In the next-door garden, Mr Grant raised his eyebrows at Mrs Grant, who was trimming the edge of the lawn. ‘Just like normal married people.’

  As she drove back to London, Caro reflected that perhaps Angela’s disgraceful behaviour wasn’t quite such a disaster after all. If ever she decided to separate herself from her mouthy and increasingly priggish and erratic partner, there was at least one person who could be relied upon to be supportive: Peter Quint would be delighted.

  Building a Better World

  Serious politicians are remembered by the buildings they leave behind – Canary Wharf, Holyrood, the Dome. Most politicians leave behind no buildings at all, which is of course the point.

  The Master

  Ever since the murder of Ella, Davie had felt extremely well. There were no night-time writhings, no black moments, no regrets. He felt cleansed, as if he’d been through a scouring, icy shower; and the world looked as if it had been freshly rinsed as well. He spoke to Mary and the boys in exactly the same way as before. He missed Ella not at all. The only cloud on his bright horizon was the distant possibility of a police investigation, and of him being questioned. In retrospect, of course, he and Ella might have been seen together and remembered – on the vaporetto, having a coffee at Burano – who knows? Everybody has a camera in their pocket these days. Perhaps the old woman who shook her head at him had seen something after all.

  And yet, on balance, Davie thought not. He’d had a great triumph in the department, and he was still luxuriating in it. Political success was as instantly warming and reassuring as heroin in the blood vessels. Even Bunty had gone quiet. She made no impertinent comments. She asked no awkward questions. She just seemed pleased to have seen the back of Ella. And she managed Davie’s constituency business with calm efficiency, he had to give her that. When Mary and the boys came to London, Bunty showed an almost maternal side. She fixed tickets to musicals, and told the boys where the best burgers were to be had. When he moved into the secretary of state’s spacious office she didn’t replace the imperturbable private secretary, Moira, he had inherited, but the two women appeared to get on, and they worked well together. So it was no particular surprise when during one of his Monday-morning planning sessions Bunty appeared in his office with a buff envelope and a serious expression.

  This was by far Davie’s favourite time of the week. With the departmental planning officer, his architectural adviser and the permanent secretary, he was contemplating a beautifully constructed three-dimensional model of the new city he planned to raise in Somerset. Perspex buildings, on tiny Perspex piles, rose above a rippling, coloured landscape which showed the positions of the existing buildings and of the new canals that would end the problem of flooding forever. 3-D printers allowed the department to visualise the entirely new landscape, while simultaneously costing the acquisition of the land and the provision of new rail, road and water links. Davie had insisted that there would be a Grand Canal twisting throu
gh the centre of the city, with water frontages more ornate and beautiful than anything that had been built in England since the Edwardians. Every Monday there were new additions. Private contractors brought in suggestions all week; large computer screens showed visualisations of individual buildings and of the views along the canals or across the piazzas (Davie had banned the use of ‘squares’).

  Sunlight fell across the beautiful model. The permanent secretary had just brought some good news: one of the larger farmers was prepared to sell up at a very decent price, in return for a canalside mansion, which he wanted the king’s favourite architect to design for him. Everyone would win – the department, the former farmer, and the flattered monarch.

  Bunty tugged at Davie’s elbow. ‘It’s frae Maw. Dinnae fash. It’s no’ aboot the hoor.’ The permanent secretary smiled and raised his eyebrows. Not for the first time, Davie thanked his lucky stars that nobody in the department understood a word of Scots.

  Bunty passed him the envelope. ‘Go on, buggerlugs, open it then.’

  Inside, there was a single coloured photograph. It showed an elderly man wearing a grey jacket and a military cap, crouched down and staring at an architectural model of a town.

  ‘Ken tha’ bampot?’

  ‘Of course. It’s Linz … and him.’

  ‘Aye. ’Itler. It’s Maw’s way of telling you you’ve lost the heid. Doonfa’ … awa’ wi’ the fucking fairies, boss.’

  By now everyone else in the room was looking concerned. Flushing, Davie ordered them all out: ‘It’s a constituency matter that Bunty here has drawn to my attention. Can you just give us a few moments?

  ‘Now, really, Bunty …’ he began when they were alone.

  ‘Aye, aye, yerra busy man. No’ time ferra wee bit girl who didnae go t’the college. But see here, Mr Petrie, my maw’s a very bright woman, and she’s been keepin’ a close interest. You’d be surprised. And she’s not the only one. My man suggested I come and have a wee talk with you. Maw likes all the new hooses you’re building for working folks down south – just like you built them in Glaikit a’ those years. And Maw, and the hale party back home, are dead chuffed wi’ how fast you’ve scampered up the greasy pole – like a damned little monkey, she says. They’re no’ so pleased wi’ how you’ve treated Mary and the boys, mind – but they don’t ken a’thing. Mebbe enough said.

  ‘No, she says you couldnae hae done it wi’oot powerful freens – Murdoch White, and New Labour and a’ that crowd. Good for you: politics, Maw says, is aboot poo’r and how to get it. But there’s the rub, Mr Petrie. A’body kens – the birds in the trees, Maw, the dumbest auld cooncillors, even daft wee Bunty, even her man – a’body kens that the Maister has eyes only for Caroline Phillips. She’s who he wants as wir next prime minister. That’s no’ great. Maw says Caroline Phillips will do anything – she’ll sign up with the Yanks and all the Maister’s business freens. She says – begging your pardon, Mr Petrie – that you’re no’ the brightest bulb in the set, but you’re honest and you’ve got values, and you’ll stick up for the rest of us. But meanwhile, there you are in the bunker, staring at little models while the world changes around you. So the message is this: forget about your bloody hooses for a minute or two, and get back to bloody work. You’ve got a fight on your haunds, whether you want it or not.’

  Davie was staggered. Not by Bunty’s unaccustomed eloquence – he’d figured out long ago that she was entirely formidable – nor by the message she brought. Ever since Grimaldi had announced his imminent resignation, cabinet gossip had been hot for either Caroline Phillips or him, and he was well aware that he was continuing to act as a departmental minister, not as a man campaigning for the highest office. The truth was, he hoped and believed that the party would go for substance, not for the grand, airy-fairy guff Caroline was spouting – all those fancy companies, all that capering around with captains of industry. It was like ‘triangulation’, and ‘the third way’, and ‘one nation’ – all the trite catchphrases that impressed Westminster commentators and left the rest of the country stony-faced. But perhaps he was wrong. Private Eye had just carried a very subtle insinuation that the Master and Caroline Phillips were more than merely tutor and pupil. He didn’t quite believe that either.

  No, what had staggered him was Bunty’s cool insolence in coming in and lecturing him. Did the votes of the Glaikit electorate, his rapid rise through the ranks in Parliament, the flattering profiles in the press, the television appearances and the policy breakthroughs, mean nothing at all? Did she think he was stupid? And worse, if he had no idea what was going on in that girl’s head, perhaps he really was stupid – perhaps he didn’t understand the first thing about what was going on. At any rate, she was right about one thing: he had to pull himself together. He had to ready himself for the fight.

  ‘Thank you, Bunty. You’ve been very candid. Just one thing. This man of yours …?’

  ‘Aye. An older fellow. And on the other side – for Christ’s sake, dinnae tell Maw. But he’s got his head screwed on, and like he says, he keeps his ear to the ground.’

  ‘And this older fellow, does he also hear what your mother’s been hearing? What does he say about it?’

  ‘He says wha’ he always says – “Quite concur.”’

  To Glaikit – and Back

  Make enemies; it’s the cardinal rule, because if you don’t make enemies, you stand for nothing. And then eventually everyone’s an enemy.

  The Master

  Davie Petrie? Who was David Petrie? It was a question that, rather late in the day, he realised could not be answered in London, but only back in Glaikit, where the ghost of a brutal father, and his very much alive, betrayed family, must be confronted. On his rare trips home he always tried to get a forward-facing window seat in first-class carriage F, on the sunless side, where he could work. As that work piled up, he began to bring along his private secretary, a single man who lodged, uncomplainingly, at the station hotel. Davie had become used to being recognised, and had developed a practised, glassy, unwelcoming response which kept all but the most persistent constituents and busybodies away. So the train had become almost a refuge.

  This time, however, there was no private secretary with him. Davie had left his red boxes behind. And such was the turmoil in his mind, he wasn’t sure whether he’d ever be returning to London. He’d done more than he could have believed possible when he was first elected. He’d done the most terrible thing – but he’d erected good stone walls around the story of Ella, and locked the door on her, and he’d never gone back. He’d also done some rather wonderful things. He’d promised to build, and build he had. His policy of tax breaks for more ornamented and better-designed modern buildings – the so-called ‘beautiful policy’ – would result in fine, carved-stone police stations, schools and council offices all across the UK. In future, most of the blurred towns that passed the train’s window would bear the Petrie mark. There was talk of a new golden age in architecture. It wasn’t ridiculous. Yes, he’d be remembered, and in a good way. How many modern politicians could say the same?

  The immediate future, however, seemed darker. He couldn’t be sure whether or not he had the Master’s blessing. On balance, he thought not. He’d learned a lot, from Murdoch White and others, but it seemed pretty clear that the next chapter was to be a full-on fight to the death with the home secretary, Caroline Phillips. She, according to the commentators – including Peter Quint, who was actually now being a bit nicer to him – had the support of the king and most of the leading English Labour MPs. He had the unions and the north, even if Nationalist Scotland held mostly aloof. This was exactly the kind of battle that had ripped the party apart so many times before. Even assuming he won, what sort of authority would he have?

  The crucial test, he knew, would be the security conference in Rome, and trying to get the defence, trade and intelligence deal agreed by the cabinet. Nobody had forgotten that he’d made his first political mark by backing Trident and the American alli
ance. But alliance was one thing; this was something else. Even the JIC top brass, slaveringly subservient to the Yanks, hadn’t been able to disguise the fact that it was a takeover, not a collaboration. And it wasn’t as if they’d be handing over the privacy and security of the British people just to Langley or Foggy Bottom. No, the big US internet corporations would be involved as well – so no hope of a silicon economic revival on this little island. It was all terrible; not even an earnest, several-bottle evening with Murdoch White had been able to convince him otherwise. But if he didn’t play along, that smarmy Caroline Phillips would.

  Davie wasn’t a fool; by the time the train pulled into Glaikit, he’d worked out that if either he or Caroline refused to do the deal, they would never become prime minister; and if either of them agreed to it, he or she would go down in history as a traitor to the Labour Party and to Britain. That was the hideous conundrum the Master had handed them. Clearly, they had been set up, and were going to be tested at the conference. It was impossible. The Master, of course, would be watching. Should he even go?

  Mary and the boys gave him a warm welcome, entirely unmerited, which brought moisture to his eyes. There was an ordinariness, a cosiness, to the squabbles about the pasta bake, and who wanted to watch which box set, that seemed to him unbearably poignant. Mary, who was being suspiciously nice to him, packed the boys off to bed early – she wanted to sit and have a talk. But Davie said he had constituency work to do. He ignored the hurt look in her eyes as he pulled on his coat and left the house.

  There was a keen edge to the air, and the smell of coal smoke brought him back to his childhood as he trudged under the sodium lamps towards the increasingly decrepit council estate where Elspeth Cook would be waiting for him, a pot of scalding, dark-brown tea at her elbow and a copy of the New Statesman on the table. Funny how he’d come to rely on ‘Granny Stalin’ as a moral guide. A lot of that was down to Bunty. How long ago it seemed since he’d trapped her, drooling, behind her desk at the council offices. But who had really trapped whom?